South Park 22.03 Review – “The Problem with a Poo”

The bar wasn’t very high heading into episode three of season 22, but South Park finally delivered.

Mr. Hankey is always a welcome sight in South Park. He’s a piece of crap making poop jokes. Poop is funny. It’s funnier when coming from a literal piece of poop. Yeah, Matt and Trey equated Hankey to Kavanaugh and Roseanne during the episode, but the larger message was evident: 2018 is shit.

Reuniting Kyle and Mr. Hankey provided South Park with it’s best arc of the season. Mr. Hankey just wants to be accepted for being a piece of shit. He makes mistakes, largely thanks to Ambien, but deep down he’s a good guy. Even if, you know, he’s actually a piece of shit. Kyle wanted to stand by his friend, because standing by your friends, even when they are shit, is what you’ve always been taught to do. As we learned this episode — and what we should already know in life — if you’re friends with a piece of shit, you’re shit by association.

South Park didn’t go too hard on the Kavanaugh hearings, which is good. Much like Trump’s entire campaign and term; it’s tough to out absurd what’s actually absurd. The Roseanne/Ambien jokes had more charm to them every time. Something about Hankey’s delivery and continued use of the drug, despite the consequences, made me crack every time. Sort of like Towlie being unable to stay away from marijuana.

While Cartman and Stan weren’t featured, both provided some strong one-liners as Kyle tried to remain loyal to the man that helped him one time…sort of.

The PC Principal-Strong Woman story; I could have lived without. The PC babies were sort of cute and the commentary on people being born/raised in a PC world had a little bite to it, but I can’t say I’m invested into either character. I’m honestly shocked PC Principal has lasted this long and continues to be involved in a major story. Gender roles/equality, PC-ness, blah, blah. The material simply isn’t all that funny.

That said, the Monica Lewinski joke slay’d.

Opening with another school shooting and then dedicating an entire episode to how 2018 is shit was a much better move than the series premiere episode where they turned overreactions in period jokes. Once again, South Park is best when they keep it simple and weird.

And the Simpsons joke at the end was perfect. I thought Hankey was headed to Washington, but he went to a place much worse.

6.5

The final score: reviewAverage

The 411

South Park is halfway back. The PC Principal/Strong Woman story kept this from being better than it should have been, but the Mr. Hankey story hit on multiple levels. More timely pop culture comedy, nostalgia and off the wall charm. Less social commentary, value pushing and utilizing characters that no one cares about.